News Archive

Outside funding is running dry and the City must decide what to do about the fluoridation of the water supply. The debate over adding fluoride to the City’s water supply is back. After two years, the City of San Diego is forced to revisit the issue. State law requires large water suppliers to fluoridate its […]

A study last year revealed that an alarming number of children in Sonoma County are suffering serious dental health problems. The report showed that almost half the county’s kindergarteners and about 60 percent of its third graders had experienced some form of tooth decay. More importantly, 16 percent of the children showed untreated tooth decay, […]

Still smarting a week after the Olivehurst Public Utility District board voted to stop fluoridating water, the First 5 Yuba Commission decided Thursday to ask the board to reconsider, and also consider internally whether there was a way to ensure future grants didn’t suffer a similar fate. Some commissioners openly expressed disappointment or even anger […]

The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors this evening voted unanimously to spend $103,000 on an engineering and design report for fluoridation of the Sonoma County Water Agency’s drinking water supply. In Sonoma County, only Healdsburg and the Fitch Mountain area have fluoridated water. The proposal to fluoridate the water is one of five approaches to […]

A decision by the Olivehurst Public Utility District board to stop adding fluoride to its drinking water will not hurt the district’s ability to receive grants from the First 5 Yuba commission, according to its executive director. “A lot of our projects aren’t sustainable, and that’s always been an issue,” said Cynthia Sodari, head of […]

Fluoride is on the way out in the Olivehurst Public Utility District. Citing potential health concerns from the chemical compound, the district’s board voted 3-2 on Thursday night to stop adding it to drinking water, four years after its use was approved through a local grant to bolster children’s dental health. “I’ve seen people from […]

The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday is set to advance one of its most hot-button projects: a bid to introduce fluoride to most of the county’s drinking water to improve dental health. A new county report concludes that move, though still in its study phase, would be feasible, although it could also be […]

The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday could take the next step in a long-proposed plan to add fluoride to most of the county’s drinking water. The move is intended to improve dental health and is a common practice across the country, recommended by leading national and international health agencies. But it has sparked […]

Excerpt: An alarming 2011 county report detailed at length the deteriorating state of oral health in Sonoma County, particularly among low-income children. As the county Task Force on Oral Health underscored in its analysis, the county is seeing “a staggering burden of suffering and a growing oral health divide between rich and poor.” … Last […]

“For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple—and wrong.” — H.L. Mencken In an Aug. 7 Press Democrat story about Sonoma County’s new public health officer, Dr. Lynn Silver-Chalfin, we read that in her capacity as assistant health commissioner for New York City, she helped the city ban trans fats. This […]